Danish arrests over 'plot to kill Muhammad cartoonist'

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill a cartoonist who drew a caricature of the prophet Muhammad, Danish police said today.

Two Tunisians and one Dane of Moroccan origin were arrested in an early morning raid in Aarhus, in the west of the country. Earlier reports said five suspects had been detained.

Police officials said they made the arrests to "prevent a terror-related murder" after a long period of surveillance, but did not say which cartoonist had been targeted.

Jakob Scharf, the chief of Danish intelligence, said the 40-year-old Dane had been arrested on suspicion of violating Danish terror laws. He said the suspect would probably be released after questioning.

The Tunisians would be deported from Denmark because they were considered threats to national security.

"The case shows that, unfortunately, there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not accept and respect the basic principles on which the Danish democracy has been built," said the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Carsten Juste, the editor of the paper in which the cartoons were first published, alleged that the suspects had been planning to kill Kurt Westergaard.

Westergaard was one of 12 cartoonists behind the drawings of the prophet, published in Jyllands-Posten. The images sparked protests and violent demonstrations around the world two years ago.

In a statement on the newspaper's website, the cartoonist said he feared his life was in danger.

"Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service says that some people have concrete plans to kill me," he said. "But I have turned fear into anger and resentment."

Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the Islamic Faith Community, a network of Muslim groups based in Copenhagen that spearheaded protests against the cartoons in Denmark, said he hoped today's arrests would not rekindle the uproar.

"We urge Muslims to take it calmly," he told a TV network.

The cartoonists have been living under police protection since the cartoons were published because they have received death threats.

One of the cartoons published showed Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a fuse.

Islamic law prohibits any depiction of the prophet, even favourable, for fears it could result in idolatry.